Ginsburg Admits Smoking Marijuana in '60s and '70s

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court nominee Douglas H. Ginsburg issued a statement Thursday admitting that he smoked marijuana on a number of occasions, apparently including the period when he was a member of the Harvard University Law School faculty--an announcement that raises questions about his continued viability as a candidate for the nation's highest court.

"It was a mistake, and I regret it," he said.

The marijuana use Ginsburg admitted to--"once as a college student in the '60s, and then on a few occasions in the '70s"--comes as a particular embarrassment for President Reagan. The President praised Ginsburg when he nominated him as a judge who would be tough on crime. And, along with Mrs. Reagan, the President has made the "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign a focal point of his second term.

In an anti-drug speech he has used on several occasions, for example, Reagan has denounced "the gurus of hedonism and permissiveness" who created "a flippant and irresponsible attitude toward drug use."

Ginsburg issued his statement acknowledging drug use after it became known that former colleagues on the Harvard faculty had described the episodes to reporters. National Public Radio carried an account of the matter Thursday.

Reagan and Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III both issued statements reaffirming their support for Ginsburg. But whether the nomination survives "depends entirely on Hill reaction," a key Administration strategist said after Meese spent several hours meeting with conservative Republican senators.

And initial reaction among the Republican senators who must form the core of Ginsburg's support varied from non-committal to ruefully critical.

"I don't know about the facts yet. We'll have to look into it," said Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will conduct hearings on Ginsburg's nomination.

"You like to think people who are appointed to the Supreme Court respect the law," said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), a conservative member of the Judiciary Committee.

The use of marijuana, while against the law, has been widespread on American campuses for more than two decades. In Ginsburg's case, however, the seriousness of the issue may be increased by the fact that most of the episodes occurred during his adult life and when he was a law school teacher.

Even before the announcement that Ginsburg used marijuana, conservative supporters had been edging away from the nominee, concerned over the lack of evidence that he shares their beliefs on social issues and because his wife, an obstetrician, performed three abortions as part of her medical training before they were married.

Although Ginsburg did not explicitly say he had used marijuana when he was a professor at Harvard, colleagues on the faculty confirmed that he had.

Drug Use 'Very Common'

"Like almost everyone his age," he smoked marijuana "in a social context . . . at parties," said one colleague who attended such gatherings with Ginsburg. "Among people of that generation, it was very common."

Nina Totenberg, legal affairs correspondent for National Public Radio, reported moments after Ginsburg issued his statement on the matter that she had interviewed "at least a half dozen of his friends and colleagues who saw him smoking marijuana when he was a professor at Harvard Law School in the 1970s and perhaps in the early 1980s."

"He on occasion brought the marijuana," she reported.

Totenberg told the Associated Press later Thursday that after she aired her report, "a source close to Judge Ginsburg called NPR and said that Ginsburg denies that he ever brought marijuana with him. That conflicts with what I was told by others in Cambridge who said that Ginsburg, as a young law professor, kept a stash of marijuana."

A Criminal Offense

Marijuana use was a criminal offense in Massachusetts at the time Ginsburg lived there, although arrests for simple possession of the drug were rare and the penalties were not severe. Possession of marijuana also was illegal in other jurisdictions in which Ginsburg lived, including the District of Columbia and New York.

Some Republican senators indicated that they would continue to support the nominee. "It's OK with (Jesse) Helms," one Administration official said with relief after Meese's meetings with senators, referring to the conservative North Carolina Republican.

Another conservative, Sen. Gordon J. Humphrey (R-N.H.), called the drug use "disturbing," but said he regards it as "a youthful indiscretion." Among conservatives "there will be some" discomfort with the nominee, he said, but "the question is to what degree?" For now, "I don't see the situation as being serious," he added.